PORTSMOUTH — Whole Foods Market announced Thursday that it will open a downtown Portsmouth store in 2016.

“We are excited to be reaching residents of coastal New Hampshire with this location in Portsmouth,” said Laura Derba, president of Whole Foods's North Atlantic Region. “We have been receiving requests for a Portsmouth store for many years and we are pleased to be able to open and serve this vibrant community.”

A specific location has not been announced, but Derba said it will be a 40,000-square-foot store that will employ about 175 people. Calls to local developers about the location for the Portsmouth store yielded only speculation.

The same day the new Portsmouth store was announced, Whole Foods also announced plans to open stores in Beverly, Mass. and Shreveport, La.. Whole Foods stores are upscale, feature organic items and prices are on the high end of the supermarket spectrum. According to Whole Foods' Web site, it did $11.7 billion in business during fiscal year 2012.

Whole Foods was founded in 1974 in Austin, Texas, and has grown to a chain of 367 stores with 78,000 employees the company call “team members.” Fortune magazine named Whole Foods one of the 100 best companies to work for over the past 16 years.